OS Help - What Am I Trying to Build Here?

[anonapon]

Hi,

For a while, I've needed a NAS for media serving, and after a long time I decided not to get a low-power high-cost appliance but to build my own with Ubuntu Server or FreeNAS. I put together a desktop running XP a few years ago and a NAS seems like it should be roughly within my abilities. After getting pretty far into the process, in fact I have a complete parts list and could be done, I realized I should build something more than just a media server and offload some of my low-intensive long running desktop functions onto the NAS. The NAS will always be on anyway, and I'm planning to build a new high-performance power-hungry desktop which should be shut off when not in use. The problem is, I no longer know what kind of machine I'm trying to build. What I'd like it to do is:

Serve video and music of many formats (HD, SD, images, rips) and containers (iso, avi, mkv, flac, mp3, etc) to Windows and Ubuntu computers, and media players
Run home control/automation software
Record HDTV
Run Bitorrent filesharing software

I was planning on the NAS having three software JBOD or RAID 0 volumes over eight drives - one four-drive media server volume, one three-drive media server volume, and one single-drive documents and desktop backup volume. The contents of the NAS would then have scheduled 1:1 backups to the cheapest external drive or appliance solution I can find.

I currently run uTorrent for torrents, and SageTV for TV recording and scheduling, but there are multiplatform alternatives for each (including a linux version of Sage) and it shouldn't be too difficult replicating them on the NAS. The first problem is the home control software, Home Automated Living, which only runs on Windows. The second is actually upgrading TV capture to an HD Cablecard tuner as described in this article. According to the article, the tuner only works on Windows Vista Premium (or higher) or Windows 7. So, to ask a question I hope doesn't have the most obvious answer, am I making a Windows server? Sometimes things can be added into Ubuntu Server, but do these functions apply? If I do need Windows, which edition/level? Windows Home Server, or one of the desktop variants? Do the desktop variants still function as media servers while also running desktop applications? Due to my level of ignorance, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a concern, but I don't want another workstation, I want it to be administered remotely, via web browser or something similar to regular NASes, and does not require its own display, or keyboard, or mouse after the initial setup.

What should I be using?

Thanks.

 

[00Roush]

Well straight out I will tell you if you are planning on using your computer for recording video Windows is probably going to be supported the best. That does not mean you can not do it on another OS... just saying it would most likely be the path of least resistance. From my point of view recording video is the only thing on your list that would possibly need any consideration. I am fairly certain that all of the other tasks would run find on a low-mid range dual core system on Ubuntu. From what I can tell video recording can also be done on linux using programs like MythTV. It looks there are a few different choices you could use for tuner cards. Seems like it really depends on what type of broadcasts you want to record.

As for hardware I would say with the recording aspect you might consider a low-mid range quad core. Something like a AMD Phenom II X4 810 or Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200. Really just a guess though...

As for the OS considerations... From what I recall all of the desktop Windows variants are limited to serving a maximum of 10 clients at once. So basically if you planning to share files between more than 10 clients you would need to look elsewhere. I currently use Win XP Pro on my server and for the most part I use it without a monitor or keyboard and just use the remote desktop to manage it. I think Vista or Windows 7 would be just as easy to manage.

Sorry I can't be of more help but so far I have not jumped into video recording/home control side of things much.

00Roush

 

[anonapon]

Hi 00Roush,

Thanks for your help, and thanks for your posts in other parts of the forums. They been very helpful.

I might solve any possible home automation problems by moving to a dedicated network box like this. It should have pretty low power draw and be reasonably reliable. Unfortunately, as far as I understand it, when it comes to TV tuners, it appears there's only one choice if one wants a cablecard tuner, an ATI board that comes in external and internal versions, and Windows Vista or 7 must be the operating system, but following your example, I'll look into it and give more consideration of using remote desktop to manage the server.

Thanks.

 

[mamexp]

What you're looking for is no longer a NAS but a Home Server. As for the OS selection, it greatly depends on the programs/applications you're looking for. I didnt look into those home automation appliance, but i advise you to look for one thats platform independent (either java based or cloud based ). I wouldnt be surprised if they already have products with web based management.

As for HTPC, what you need is a front end with a backend server. The backend server is actually your Homeserver. I recommend you to look at MythTV or MediaPortal. Its free and it can do just that. I'm sure SageTV can also be implemented as such but its expensive and heavily depends on Windows.... no good imo.

I, however, took a different approach. I use NAS purely for data sharing and backup. But all my HTPCs are diskless and rely purely on my NAS to operate. One of the HTPC is a front+back-end, all others are just front end. This approach gives me exactly what i want: No other application can interupt my NAS (important for data safety and uptime), All HTPC is backed up so if anything wrong with them, i can just reverse the img and the HTPC is back to its good state (no down time and affecting other computers in the house). I cant recommend on this because i'm still testing this approach. I find this heavily network-based system requires good quality of network components (especially network switch). I've been running this for over a month now. Works great.

 

[pender]

Install VMWare's ESXi server on the device (assuming it is supported). VMware lets you run multiple full Desktop/Server OSes concurrently on the same machine (like Windows, Ubuntu, BSD, Mythbuntu/LinuxMCE etc all on the same computer). It is free to use and widely supports many hardware configurations.

You install the VMware ESXi base on the target machine (usually to a USB flash drive). You then can install as many different OSes as you want and have them load on boot. For example, once you install ESXi, you can install Windows 2008 onto the machine and then Ubuntu and have them both load on startup. You can then install whatever OS you choose or want to try and delete it without reformatting anything if you decide you do not want it.

This is likely the best option for you because you are not constrained to the feature set of one particular OS.
http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/
You can also migrate a current OS installation on a networked computer to the VM server, which is very cool if you have multiple servers on your LAN.

With ESXi installed, Install Windows Homer Server or XP/7, plus a Linux Distro like LinuxMCE for automation (be sure TV capture card is supported by ESXi).

I like uTorrent for torrenting because it has a nice Web UI (great with utorrent Firefox extension, lets you add torrent by right clicking on torrent link) and has a very nice comprehensive RSS downloader - compared to Azureus/Vuze. It is windows and Mac Only, but works under wine.

 

[anonapon]

Hey, thanks for both of your replies. I'm not sure I'm at the point where I could use dumb terminals, but it's an interesting idea I might come back to in the future. Virtualization is probably what I'll try first. I might have to change my hardware list a little to accommodate for two simultaneously running OSes, but it won't be by much.

Thanks again.